Watching all the Special Programmings on cable TV
relating to Martin Luther King's assasination in Memphis
I recall my being just feet away from the scene
and only 17 years old.
 
I had worked for years, all through Junior and Senior High
downtown on Main Sreet at the Loews's State Movie Theatre.
 
During the school months, I only worked after school hours of course
and all through the weekends 7 days a week.
 
During the summer months I worked from opening to closing.
 
I always bragged that all I ever knew was work and sleep and that
was all I ever did this life.
 
The Memphis Sanitation Workers were on strike for a very long time.
They marched on both sides of Main Street from City Hall to Beal Street for hours and hours.
 
I would get out of school, catch the 52 Jackson-Macon City Bus downtown.

It would let me off on Main Street on the opposite side of the theatre
and I wouild have to step up onto the curb, pass through the
marcher's line, then walk about a block down Main till I was opposite
of the theatre, then walk back through the line, step into the street, cross it,
then upon reaching the other side, step up onto that side of the street and pass through that line on that side.
 
I had to do this for weeks during the entire strike.
 
My job there forever, was USHER.
 
All I usually did was stand in the back of the theatre, and just watch
the audience, waiting for any disturbance, mostly looking for
anyone possibly lighting up a cigarette, then I would have to speak to them..
 
During the strike, however, Mr. Skee YAVAN my boss, had me stand down
on Main Street next to the box office all the time.
 
I had no idea then, and I still wonder what his purpose was.
 
Sometimes I think it was just to make the ticket lady, Jennie feel
more comfortable. But what could I have done if anything went bad?
 
There were times of viloence.
There was looting, breaking windows, violence,
but it wasn't the striking workers, just others
supporting the cause.
 
I just don't recall it ever really being such a big deal then
but I was just a teenager.
 
At some point, Mr. YOVAN called down for me and Jennie
to come to his office, to close down the ticket booth.
 
Jennie just disappeared.
 
Mr. YOVAN asked me to go into the theatre and ask everyone...
one at a time, to go home, and to stop off by his office for a pass to return, or a refund.
 
He didn't mention to me why,
and I never questioned him as I was never
one to question authority (at that time, anyway).
 
When everyone was gone, Mr. YOVAN told me to go home
and still didn't tell me anything.
 
I wasn't even phased by it all.
 
I just left, and upon walking through the main entrance on Main Street
I was somewhat suprised to see that the hundreds of marchers and others had
totally disappeared like magic.
 
There was not one single person to be seen in either direction on Main Street.
 
I recall just standing there looking from one end of Main to the other
feeling like I was in the middle of the Sahara Desert or alone on Mars.
 
In a few minutes, down Main Street, heading north, comes the ambulance
surrounded and followed by a number of Memphis Police cars.
 
Headed north, they were going directly to the closest hospital
not far away at all, which was St. Joseph's Hospital.
 
I had no idea what that was all about either, but it was a first,
an ambulance with escort.
 
I just headed down N. Main, taking the bus route, walking.
 
When I finally reached Jackson Avenue, which was the main street
that would take me the greatest direction, and just blocks from home,
a man in a pickup truck pulled over and offered me a ride home.
 
I don't recall if he was the one who told me what was going on.
 
I don't even recall if it was Mother who told me or not, once I got home.
 
I just have no idea to this date.
 
I do recall that on that long ride home, there was not one person in sight anywhere,
no traffic other than Memphis Police coming and going.
 
In 2005, passing through Indianappolis, I hear of
President Ronald REAGAN's escaping this earth,
and returned to DC for the funeral.
 
It coincided, that very month with the 40th Anniversary of
Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream Speach"
at the Lincoln Memorial.

I wasn't aware that it was coming up.
 
It was one eventfull month for me there.
 
At The Lincoln Memorial a brass  placque was being placed on the steps
Leading up to the Memorial that would commemorate Dr. King's
historical speach and presence there 40 yrs earlier.
 
It amazed me that it wasn't engraved in some shop, then placed there.
 
It was engraved, worked on , on a daily basis by this young man
under an open-sided tent so he could be observed.
 
I visited him daily to see the thing completed.
 
Watching The History Channel..and countlesss times over the years,
seeing the same films, videos, clips of the Dr. KING Tragedy,
I still don't understand how it is,that...
 
NOW...as an adult it seems so much more tragic than it did back then
as far as I was concerned.
 
I don't recall ever being frightened or even questioning the entire strike...and being the only white kid in sight.
 
I don't even recall anyone talking to us about it in classrooms
at Treadwell High  where I went,
before or even after the assassination.
 
I suppose it was just because I was a teenager..and not fully aware
of the significance of any minute of it at the time.
 
 
Being practically the only white person amongst hundreds of Blacks
way back then and being unmoved and unconcerned...unfrightened.
 
And the same in DC in 2005.
 
Guess I will never understand.

God works in mysterious ways.
 
God Bless us all, everyone.
 
Rick REED
 
RxR


     


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